1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to improved data processing methods and systems and, in particular, to methods and systems for updating dictionaries in computer application programs.
2. Description of the Related Art
Jargon is the bane of life in the modern world. Scientists and engineers are confronted with journals and papers that are filled with technical jargon. Government agencies produce voluminous reports with special terms and acronyms. Computer programmers concoct new terms and acronyms that are specific to a computer application program that is being developed. Computer program products often have terms and component names that are unique to the product and/or unique to a specialized field that the computer program application may be specifically tailored for use, such as medicine or law.
Many documents are produced for business, school or for personal use on word processors, spread sheets, data bases and other application programs. Users of these programs have come to rely on spell checking programs (spell checkers) to check the spelling of the words in a document and to identify those words that are incorrectly spelled. Each application program used for producing documents typically includes a spell checker and each of these spell checkers has an associated dictionary file that contains a list of correctly spelled words. To check the spelling of a word in a document, the spell checker searches the dictionary for that word. If the word is in the dictionary, then the word is correctly spelled. Otherwise, the word is misspelled. The spell checker typically reports the misspelling to the user and prompts the user to correct the spelling. The spell checker then replaces the misspelled word with the correctly spelled word.
The typical spell checker also allows the user to add words to the dictionary. The jargon, terms, component names, acronyms and other words that are newly developed or are not otherwise commonly used except in a specialized field are not initially included in the spell checker dictionary. Instead, these words must be added to the dictionary by the user each time the new word is singled out as being misspelled by the spell checker. Alternatively, the spell checker dictionary may include a dialogue box for adding words to the dictionary before they are singled out by the spell checker as being misspelled in a document.
In either case, individually adding new words into a dictionary can be a cumbersome and/or error prone process since the unknown words may be erroneously spelled by the user when being added to the spell checker dictionary. Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method and apparatus for automatically updating dictionaries with new words and/or words used only in highly specialized fields.